Montreal’s most francophone Irish pub is a breath of fresh air — it doesn’t feel like a caricature-esque copy of every other generic Irish pub in the world, there’s an actually-good beer selection, and the food feels like it’s made with a little more love than other wings ‘n’ fries pub options around town. They’re doing a party on St. Patrick’s Day, and brunch on parade day, complete with Irish coffee.

Along with Hochelaga’s Le Trèfle, McCarold’s is something of a new generation of “Irish” pubs, with a little more TLC injected into food and beer offerings than some of the older options around town — and a large selection of Scotch.

This NDG favourite is one of few Irish pubs outside the city’s de facto Celtic Drinking District around Crescent Street. Pros: the crowd is likely a little less party-oriented. Cons: it’s seriously small.

With a parade on Sunday and St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday, one of the city’s go-to Irish pubs will likely be messy for the whole weekend, but with no shortage of action. There’s another location not too far away on St-Laurent but given its proximity to McGill, it won’t be any less packed; the West Island location will likely also draw celebratory crowds.

Hurley’s turns 25 this year, and to celebrate, the pub is stretching the weekend to the maximum, with celebrations running Friday right through to Sunday — there’s breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday, and metaphorical bucketloads of Celtic music all weekend.

Start the day boozy with a $15 breakfast (Irish coffee included) on the Friday immediately before St. Patrick’s Day, accompanied by a live broadcast from rock station CHOM. On the day itself, the pub opens early for breakfast and the England versus Ireland Six Nations rugby match and live music in the afternoon and evening; there’s also a parade day breakfast from 9 a.m.

It’s just one of six locations for this Celtic pub in the Greater Montreal area (OK, we’re stretching that right out to Saint-Sauveur and Châteauguay), but the de la Montagne spot is likely where most of the action will be, particularly on parade day (March 19).

The only pub on this map without any sort of clear pan-Celtic affiliation, Brutopia is a worthy St. Patrick’s Day haunt on the basis of its very broad beer selection alone. It’s also the only option on this map to sell house brews.